Take a Chance

by Ash Johnson

After I remove my Hummer from the back her car, we all stand and watch Harlow’s piece of shit scrape along the pavement as the tow truck driver loads it onto the flat bed.

  When the tow truck drives off with her car and the officer gets into his car, I look back to Harlow, about to ask if I can give her a ride home, but she speaks first.

  “You didn’t have to do that. It was just as much my fault as it was yours, and you know it.”

  I shrug and let it slide. It will be a hit to my already expensive insurance, but it’s not that big of a deal. For some reason I want to be the good guy, so spending a little more money each month doesn’t faze me at the moment.

  So, you need a ride home?” I ask.

  “Um, no, I need a ride to work, but I can call a cab.”

  My eyebrows pull together when she says work. “Work? It’s almost midnight.”

  She nods and pulls her crappy phone out of her pocket. “Yeah, I’m a veterinary assistant at an animal hospital, and I’m super late now. I was supposed to be in almost two hours ago.”

  I put my hand over her phone when I see her raise the antennae and dial 411, which I didn’t know still existed, and get a number for a cab service. Then I place my hand on her lower back, feeling a small tingle where we’re connected, and gently push her toward my truck, which has two or three small scratches to the front bumper but is otherwise in perfect shape.

  “Blake, what are you doing?” she asks with a bit of hesitancy in her tone.

  “I’m being a gentleman and giving you a ride to work. Would that be okay with you?” I raise a brow in a silent challenge.

  After a few seconds of internal argument, she nods and hops up into the passenger seat.

  When I get into the driver’s seat, I glance over and stare at her for just a second. I’m not quite sure why, but I like this girl. The simple conversation we had while waiting for the tow truck to haul her shit away was fun and didn’t become awkward, which is rare for me to experience.

  I’m not sure if the guy who called her earlier is her boyfriend or not, but he never offered to come pick her up, so I’m going to guess that he isn’t. If that’s the case, then this is my chance to try and get to know this girl better.

  Chapter 3

  Harlow

  His eyes are burning a hole through me. After a few seconds, my body involuntarily tingles in places that have been dormant for far too long. I ignore my body’s humming and give him directions to the animal hospital in hopes that he’ll stop glancing at me. The thought of his eyes on me makes me feel a bit desirable, but at this point in my life, I can’t deal with these feelings.

  We ride in pleasant silence for a few blocks before Blake speaks again.

  “So Harlow, would you let me take you out to dinner some night to make up for destroying your classic car?” he teases.

  “Hey, I’ll have you know that car belonged to my grandma before I turned sixteen, and it had been nothing but good to me until you crushed it under your monster truck.”

  “So that must be the reason it was groaning to be put out of its misery when I pulled my truck off it, huh. That car is older than you are.” He chuckles.

  I gaze out the window and hope that he’ll let the offer of dinner drop, and I won’t have to shoot him down. With the way my night has been heading, though, I should have known that I wasn’t going to be that lucky.

  “So, how about dinner?”

  I take a deep breath and look at his profile. I didn’t notice the tattoo on his right arm. It appears to be tribal marks: Thick, sharp black lines swirl and twist around his muscle. I’m not sure how I missed it the entire time we were standing outside, but it takes up almost a quarter of his bicep and accentuates the strong lines of muscle he’s showcasing in his sleeveless shirt. The sharp points from his tattoo match the spiky ends of his sandy blonde hair, which he keeps running his fingers through.

  He is a very handsome man. No, “handsome” isn’t a term that should be associated with this man. Downright “fuckable” would work, but he’s way beyond handsome. The idea that he’s fuckable makes turning him down even harder.

  Even though life has been much tougher than it should be over the past few years, I never let it affect my attitude. Although I’ve taken on everyone else’s problems, I’ve still had a hard time disappointing others.

  I close my eyes off to his hotness and take a deep breath. Now to do the most unpleasant thing I can think of—tell him no. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go to dinner with you. I just don’t have the time.”

  He smirks and nods, my rejection not seeming to sting at all. Why would it, though? This guy is gorgeous, and he could get any girl he wanted. Why he asked me out in the first place, I still don’t understand.

  After a few seconds, he responds. “Do you have a boyfriend then? Or are you too busy washing your hair every night?”

  Oh no. He must think I’m one of those stuck-up bitches that tell men they don’t have time to go out with them, because they’re not attracted to them.

  I quickly wave my hands in front of me and shake my head simultaneously. “No, I mean I don’t have time. I have three jobs and a little sister that I take care of.”

  His brows pull together as he glances at me and then back to the road. “How old is your sister?”

  “She’s fourteen.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  Wow. Straight to the point with this guy, huh? I don’t know anything about him other than that his name is Blake, and he drives a tank that weighs enough to crush a twenty-six-year-old car. What I do know is that he isn’t getting my life story after a five-minute car ride. I bite my lip and turn away from his because, even though I don’t want to be rude, he doesn’t need to know where my parents are.

  “I’m sorry, that was way too forward. It’s none of my business,” he says. I nod but choose to say nothing else.

  A few minutes later, we pull into the vet’s parking lot.

  “Thank you very much for the ride, Blake. And be careful on your way home.” I smile as I shift to get out.

  Just before I close the door to his black beast of a vehicle, he speaks. “I hope to see you around sometime, Harlow.”

  I furrow my brow because when are we ever going to see each other again?—but smile anyway as hop out. I find Tim is standing at the entrance, the door wide open as he glares at Blake behind the wheel of his Hummer. I scoot by him, making sure my body doesn’t touch his in any way, and speed into the office building, which smells like wet dog hair and Febreeze.

  “It’s about time you got here, Harlow. You’re almost two hours late!” Dr. Tim Paxton, the veterinarian that I work with every week night, chastises me as he follows me behind the counter. His tone surprises me, because he’s usually very nice, if not a bit flirtatious with me, but he appears angry at the moment.

  “I know I’m sorry. My car was totaled, and I had to wait for a tow truck to pick it up before I could leave. What do you need me to do?” I prepare to get back on his good side as I store my purse under the front desk and survey the room for the cause of his hysterics.

  “Nothing at the moment. It’s been quiet since I got here,” he mutters and moves around the empty lobby.

  I cock my head slightly at this. He jumps my shit, because I’m late when there wasn’t anything that needed to be done anyway? I grit my teeth as a bubble of anger floats around my stomach but bite it back, because yelling at my boss wouldn’t be a good idea. Oh well. Let’s just get this night over with.

  ***

  After another six hours, my night at the veterinary hospital is over. The night shift was almost completely silent, other than a woman bringing in her five-foot Burmese python, Princess, because it swallowed one of her two-year-olds stuffed animals. The entire time the woman was freaking out about Princess swallowing all of that stuffing, I just thought, well, at least it wasn’t your child.

  I caught a cab back to my apartment just in time to see my younger sister, Alexis, off to school.
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  “Hey, you all ready for the day?” I ask when her footsteps pound through the hall. My voice dies when I get a good look at her outfit. Her normally dark brown hair is dyed a deep red, washing out her pale skin. Kohl lines her eyes a bit too heavily. I think she was going for the smoky-eye effect but instead it appears that she hasn’t slept in days or is trying to join a vampire cult.

  Her tiny five-foot-three-inch body is stuffed into clothes that should belong on a kindergartener and not a ninth grader. The yellow halter top appears to have been ripped between the breasts and around the stomach, because she’s showing way too much of both, and the black shorts that barely cover her ass have little holes in the back to show off skin that no one should be seeing.

  “Alex, you can’t wear that to school. You’ll get sent home.”

  She moves from the kitchen counter to give me a death glare that might scare me if I hadn’t seen that same scowl every day for the past three years. We haven’t been on the same page since our grandma died. Now everything is a battle between the two of us.

  “Thanks for the tip, Mom, but I’m a big girl who can dress herself,” she sneers.

  I narrow my eyes and return the death glare. I move farther into our dinky, rundown apartment and stop a few feet away from her. “It sure doesn’t seem like you can dress yourself. It almost like the neighbor’s seven-year-old let you borrow some of her clothes.”

  Alex is so pissed that I can hear her molars grinding together. I hope she doesn’t break off one of the brackets to her braces, because I can’t afford to get them fixed again.

  “Shut up, Harlow. If I wanted fashion advice, you would be the last person I would ask.”

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t care if you want the advice or not. I’m not asking you if you would go change; I’m telling you. Now get your butt into your room and dress more appropriately for a ninth-grade girl, not a position as a street walker.”

  She growls in what I assume is an attempt to scare me and then stomps her feet an her way into her room and slams the door.

  I huff quietly before I move toward the cabinets in search of some form of nourishment.

  Ten minutes later Alex leaves her room and comes out dressed marginally better.

  She now has on a red baby-doll tee that says “Total Trash” across her chest and a pair of jean shorts that hit the middle of her thigh. These also have holes in them, but they are much longer, so I can’t complain too much.

  “Better?” she grits out. I just shrug, because asking her to go back and change for a third time would warrant a complete meltdown on her part, and if we get into it, she’ll be late for school.

  “You’re going to need to catch a ride from Amber’s mom today. I got into an accident last night, and the car is totaled. I’m going to have to wait until the insurance claim goes through before I can get a loaner car, and that might be a few days.”

  Alex is good and pissed off now. She and Amber aren’t speaking at the moment. There was a fight over a certain boy at school, and they haven’t talked for weeks, but Amber lives around the corner, and her mom and I were switching off on carpooling duty before the whole thing started; so I think Alex will be able to catch a ride.

  When she just stands next to the front door and scowls at me, I begin to beg due to lack of sleep and a strong refusal to deal with a pissy teenager.

  “Come on, Alex. I know you and Amber aren’t getting along at the moment, but I have no way to get you to school. Please just do me a solid for a few days and have Deann take you to school.” I give her my most pleading pout, knowing that I have no other options at the moment.

  She practically screams and throws her arms out. “I guess I don’t have a choice, now, do I?”

  My tight shoulders loosen a bit. Its one thing I can cross off of my ever-growing list of problems at the moment.

  “Thank you, Alex. I promise that the next time I have any free time we’ll do something fun together.” She just rolls her eyes at me and moves for the door, slamming it behind her.

  “Have a nice day. Make good choices,” I mumble to the closed door.

  After ten minutes of searching through the same three cupboards for something to eat, I give up and head back to my room for my magical three and a half hours of sleep before I have to get ready for my waitressing job.

  Oh the joys of adulthood.

  Chapter 4

  Blake

  I stroll into my gym, Endgame, and am greeted by several different guys that are regulars here. I nod as I’m moving toward my office and then give my buddy, Zane—who’s just lying on the weight bench and not lifting—a slap on the stomach before I disappear into my office and try to get some paperwork done. I should have known he wouldn’t let me off that easy.

  “Hey, Doc, what’s shakin’?”

  I shrug of answering him, because even though he has known me a lot longer than I’ve been a physical therapist, he keeps calling me Doc. We used to spar together when I was a fighter. I think he knows it drives me crazy, and the bastard gets off on it.

  He takes my silence to his question in stride and keeps pushing. “So I thought about heading out to Club Free tomorrow night and wanted to get a bunch of the guys to go with me. It’s been a long time since we’ve hung out, ya know, ‘cause half of our friends are either married or have serious girlfriends now and don’t want to head out.”

  I raise one brow in his direction and give him a glare that says, “There’s no fucking way you’re getting half of those guys to go out with you,” and he laughs.

  “Okay, okay. How about we skip the club and just have a guys’ night? We can grill up some food, drink some beers, and chill. What’cha think?”

  I shrug and nod a few times. It does sound like a good idea to just hang out with some buds for a few hours. I haven’t had time between running my successful gym and my physical therapy clients to kick back with the guys and watch a game.

  “Okay, how about we do it at my place on Sunday? We can watch the game.”

  Zane nods and tells me to invite Jay, and he’ll call a few more guys from the gym to come over. I agree and head back to my office to get some work done.

  ***

  A few days later, I’m sitting in the basement, trying to find the right channel to watch the game on when my front door opens.

  “Yo!”

  “Down here,” I tell whoever is in my house.

  My best friend, Jay Hunt, comes in with two cases of beer in his hands. I smile at the fact he’s here.

  “Ada, really let you out of the house today?” I tease.

  Jay gives me a “fuck off” glare and puts the cooler on the patio before coming back in with two beers in hand. He passes one to me, and we both pop the tops and take a long swig.

  “My wife has no problem letting me out of the house, asshole,” he grumbles.

  “I didn’t say that. I just figured that since today was your anniversary she’d want you to do something with her, not sit in my basement and watch football.” At the mention of his anniversary his eyes get bigger than I’ve ever seen them in my life.

  My shoulders sag. “Are you fucking kidding me, man? How is it that I can remember that today is your anniversary, and you can’t?”

  “No wonder she sounded sad when I told her I was coming over here. Shit! I’m an asshole,” he mutters, making me chuckle. “Ya think?”

  He flips me off and stares down to the ground, studying it like something about it has changed since he lived here almost six years ago.

  “What the fuck are you looking at, Jay?” I ask when he doesn’t lift his head.

  “Shut up, I’m trying to think of something to do for her. She’s going to fucking kill me and bury me in the backyard next to Maya’s pet goldfish.”

  I laugh at the thought of him lying in a dirt pile with his daughter’s dead fish and help him out. “Dude, just call one of those chick massage places and buy her a day pass. Let her go get her nails painted and take a bath in mud or whatever th
e fuck it is that they do at those things, and tell her you’ll watch the kids while she gets it done.”

  His mouth is slack as he listens to me. “Where in the hell did you get that from? It’s brilliant.” He digs his phone out and starts searching for day spas around us. I shrug and go back to watching the pre-game show before the rest of the guys get here.

  “No, seriously, Blake, why are you still single? You haven’t even been with a girl in months as far as I know.” I polish off my beer because I don’t have a good answer to that.

  When I have my answer straight in my own head, I tell him the truth. “Well, I was fine with being single and just having fun for a while, but it got old, you know? I got tired of having to sneak out of their beds before they woke up or hitting up a bar every weekend just to have a conversation with a chick. Then you and Ada got married, and Elle and Ronan are married, and something snapped. I realized that there was more to life than my normal fuck-and-duck routine. I’d like to have a conversation with a woman that doesn’t end with, ‘You wanna get out of here?’ and then nothing more is said, you know?”

  When Jay and Ada got together and started a family, it seemed like everyone else followed suit. Our other close friends, Elle and Ronan, were married a few months after Jay and Ada moved in together, leaving me as the odd one out.

  Jay nods, understanding where I’m coming from. He was doing the same thing with women until he met Ada Michealson, now Hunt, and never turned back. Lucky for him they met over five years ago, and he doesn’t have to deal with this dating shit anymore. Those two were glued at the hip from the second they met. Now he has this beautiful wife and two awesome kids that I secretly pine for, but I haven’t found anyone worth sharing my life with.

  I always told myself that when it came to my future wife I would make sure I was picking one I would never be able to let go of, because I was only getting married once. After watching both of my parents marry and divorce anyone that would give them a sideways glance, I learned what not to do. My mother’s interests were that they had more money than the last husband and my father’s interests have always been the younger the better. I refuse to become either one of them.